A Town Called Lifta

In the suburbs of northwest Jerusalem, on the edge of the busy Jerusalem-Jaffa highway, water flows from an ancient spring. It fills a small pool and then flows out into the Wadi-al-Shami.

This spring has a rich and tragic story to tell. Millenia ago it quenched the thirst of the early Canaanite inhabitants of the land. Across the centuries all manner of people have washed their faces and laundry in its waters.

It is mentioned in the Book of Joshua, Chapter 15:9 and 18:15 as “the spring of the waters of Nephtoah” at the time of the Isrealite occupation. Nothing else is told about this landmark except that it helped to mark the border between the tribal territory of Benjamin and Judah. It was not assigned to one tribe or the other, but as a shared resource, giving both tribes equal access to the waters.

The Bible tells us nothing about how well they managed their joint access to the single spring of Nephtoah, but throughout history and around the world, sharing water resources has always been a challenge for human beings. Sharing water requires self-restraint and cooperation. Water invites us to become better neighbors - or worse.

Over the years, the name ‘Nephtoah’ morphed into ‘Lifta.’ An Arab village of 3000 Christians and Muslims grew up around its spring. In 1948 the Israeli Defense Force occupied and ‘de-populated’ Lifta in order to protect Israeli military transit from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. All its homes were destroyed and its Arab residents forced to find refuge in East Jerusalem and elsewhere.

Lifta is still occupied today – and the park around the pool that collects the waters of the spring is now a popular picnic and bathing spot for Israelis in Jerusalem.

American psychiatrist Tom Baskett visited Lifta in 2007. He was moved by the beauty of the town. He saw orthodox Jews bathing in the pool, using it as a mikveh, performing their rituals of purity. Baskett recalled how 60 years earlier, the Palestinian villagers had been expelled violently from their homes in Lifta and he wrote a poem about his ponderings.

. . . Screams, gunshots
and shouted threats echo
through the village and along
the tree-shaded stream
to the spring-fed pool.

Two orthodox Jews, white shirted
and broad-brimmed black-hatted
casually stroll down the hill to bathe
naked in the pool confident that their
sins--racial, national, or merely
personal-- will be washed away.

Does the water run red on silent
moonlit nights after all the people
are gone and the stories return to
the land from where they came?
I imagine it is so.
Used by permisssion

Water can be a powerful teacher if we are willing to learn.

Springs of water are always a sign of the generosity of the earth and our Creator. They stand as witness to undeserved grace - and in their quiet flowing waters they whisper a plea for people to love their neighbors as they love themselves and to return blessing for blessing.